Len Cariou

Male

BornSep 30, 1939

Leonard Joseph “Len” Cariou is a Canadian actor, best known for his portrayal of Sweeney Todd in the original cast of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. He currently plays the patriarch, Henry Reagan, NYPD Police Commissioner (retired), in the multi-generational television series Blue Bloods on CBS.… Read More

'For several decades, a debate has raged over whether the voices of opera singers should be used to sing the musical theatre repertory. San Francisco Opera\'s General Director, David Gockley, was at the forefront of including musical theatre when he was General Director of the Houston Grand Opera, which was the first opera company to mount a production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Over the course of his long career at HGO, Gockley oversaw productions of My Fair Lady, A L...

'\n In 1994 I read Annette Funicello\'s autobiography that she wrote with Patricia Romanowski. It told the story of the little girl from Utica, New York, whose mother saw a singing and dancing talent and convinced her husband to take a chance and move to Hollywood to give her little Annette a shot at fame. After being discovered by Walt Disney for his new Mouseketeer Show -- Annette went on to a singing, dancing and acting career, before retiring to raise her children and then to ba...

'\n Some of New York\'s finest theater talents are set to take the stage March 18 for a great cause. \n\n Tony Award winners <mark>Len Cariou</mark>, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Karen Ziemba are the latest to join the 2013 installment of \"Broadway Backwards,\" which offers gay and lesbian theater fans a chance to \"see their stories\" told through memorable musical numbers for one night only. \n\n As director Robert Bartley notes, many of the musical numbers will be re-interpreted by...

Timeline

CHILDHOOD

TEENAGE

195919 Years Old
Cariou made his first appearance in Damn Yankees at Rainbow Stage in Winnipeg in 1959, and was a founding member of the Manitoba Theatre Centre.
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He was offered a scholarship at the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal but, married with a young child and financial responsibilities, he was forced to turn it down. Instead, he learned his craft by spending two years at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival Stratford, Ontario, and returned in 1981 to lead the company as Prospero, Coriolanus, Brutus, and Petruchio. Cariou also became a lead actor at the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis in the 1960s, where he played Orlando in As You Like It, Agamemnon in Tyrone Guthrie's compilation of The House of Atreus, Iago, Oberon, and the title roles in Henry V and King Lear. He was also an Associate Director. Read Less

TWENTIES

196828 Years Old
In 1968, Cariou made his Broadway debut in The House of Atreus.
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Two years later, Cariou landed his first starring role opposite Lauren Bacall in Applause, a musical adaptation of the film All About Eve. It earned him a Tony Award nomination as Best Actor in a Musical and won him the Theatre World Award. Read Less

THIRTIES

197333 Years Old
In 1973 he garnered his second Tony nod for A Little Night Music; he repeated the role for the 1977 film version opposite Elizabeth Taylor.
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Six years later he won both the Tony and a Drama Desk Award for his portrayal of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in the Stephen Sondheim musical opposite Angela Lansbury. Read Less

FORTIES

During these years, Cariou also appeared in a number of benefits, including A Christmas Carol for the Riverside Shakespeare Company in New York, playing Scrooge, with Helen Hayes, Raul Julia, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, directed by W. Stuart McDowell at the Symphony Space in 1985.
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His next projects, the Alan Jay Lerner–Charles Strouse musical Dance a Little Closer (1983), Arthur Miller's sole musical, Up from Paradise (1983), Teddy & Alice (1987), Ziegfeld (1988). Cariou also appeared on Broadway in Nightwatch, Cold Storage, The Speed of Darkness, Neil Silmon's The Dinner Party (with Henry Winkler and John Ritter) and Proof (with Anne Heche and Neil Patrick Harris). He directed Don't Call Back on Broadway as well. His off-Broadway appearances include Master Class, Papa (Ernest Hemingway one man show) and Mountain (Justice William O. Douglas). He appeared as Cap'n Andy in the Broadway national tour of Showboat opposite Cloris Leachman.<br /><br /> Regionally, Cariou has starred in a multitude of productions at theatres throughout North America, including The Kennedy Centre, the Mark Taper Forum, Lincoln Centre, the Long Wharf Theatre and the Old Globe. He has played the title role of Macbeth for Toronto Arts Productions, and Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon for Canadian Stage in Toronto. He has appeared multiple times throughout his career at the Manitoba Theatre Centre. Cariou appeared at The Geffen Theatre as Joe Keller in a notable production of All My Sons, a role he reprised in 2009 at the Gate Theatre in Dublin, where it was the longest running, highest grossing run of a play in that theatre's history. He also appeared at The Geffen in Neil Simon's Rose and Walsh and Heroes with George Segal. Read Less

From 1985 to 1992, Cariou was seen on multiple episodes of the popular television mystery series, Murder, She Wrote opposite his good friend and former Sweeney Todd costar Angela Lansbury.
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Cariou portrayed the recurring character of Michael Hagerty. Hagerty was an Irish international man of mystery who worked as a secret agent for British MI-6. He would get Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury), the title character of the show, involved in mysteries involving international intrigue. Read Less

FIFTIES

199353 Years Old
In 1993, Cariou was in the made-for-TV movie Miracle on Interstate 880.
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199555 Years Old
In 1995, Cariou became the first actor to portray Walt Disney in the Annette Funicello biography A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes: The Annette Funicello Story based on her book of the same name.

LATE ADULTHOOD

In 2004, Cariou was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
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Cariou's film credits include Flags of Our Fathers, About Schmidt, Thirteen Days, The Four Seasons, the Harold Prince-directed screen adaptation of A Little Night Music with Elizabeth Taylor and Secret Window in which he starred alongside Johnny Depp who would later go on to play Sweeney Todd in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the Tim Burton directed musical based on the Broadway show. He played the father in the 2007 film 1408, and the nominal lead role in The Onion Movie, based on the satirical newspaper. On television, Cariou has appeared in The West Wing, Law & Order, Star Trek: Voyager, The Practice, Ed, The Outer Limits, and multiple episodes of Murder, She Wrote. He had a continuing role in 2006–2007 as power broker Judd Fitzgerald in the Showtime series Brotherhood.<br /><br /> Cariou narrated Major League Baseball's World Series films from 1992 to 1997. He has recorded a number of books, including several by Michael Connelly, for audiotape release. He also narrated the 1989 Academy Award-winning documentary The Johnstown Flood. Read Less

In 2004, he was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

200969 Years Old
In 2009, Cariou portrayed Franklin D. Roosevelt in the HBO movie Into the Storm, earning an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie.

201070 Years Old
In 2010, Cariou appeared as Madoff-like Ponzi scheme man Louis Tobin in FX's drama Damages, the main antagonist in season three.
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He currently appears as Henry Reagan, the former NYC police commissioner and patriarch of the current commissioner's family, on Blue Bloods. Read Less

201272 Years Old
On June 23, 2012, Cariou was honored by having his name added to the Miles Macdonell Collegiate Alumni of Distinction, for his contribution to theater and arts.
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His introduction to the theater started with a starring role in the school production of The Pirates of Penzance. He holds the Order of Manitoba and has been invested with honorary degrees from the University of Windsor and the University of Winnipeg. Read Less

201575 Years Old
More recently, Cariou portrayed Cardinal Law in Spotlight, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 2015.
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He also starred in the short play Happy Birthday, Mr. Abernathy by Lloyd Suh for a public radio show and podcast, Playing On Air. Read Less